


We That Are Young

by a_t_rain



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen, References to Shakespeare, Time Period: Time of Isolation, Vorrutyer family values
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-18 01:53:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5893627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_t_rain/pseuds/a_t_rain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pierre le Sanguinaire decides that <i>King Lear</i> would make an appropriate bedtime story for his grandchildren.  As you do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We That Are Young

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Нам, младшим, не придется...](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7209248) by [jetta_e_rus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jetta_e_rus/pseuds/jetta_e_rus)



> So I was sort of musing idly about when and how Barrayaran kids might have traditionally been introduced to Shakespeare, and what messages they might have been encouraged to take from it, and ... this happened.

Piotr doesn’t like this play as much as _Henry the Fourth, Part One_. _That_ had been fun: lots of action, and Grandda had played a hilarious Mistress Quickly to Grandma’s Falstaff. (Grandda always likes to dress up in Grandma’s clothes and play the women’s parts, because he’s Count Vorrutyer and lots of the Vorrutyers are like that; and nobody ever comments on it, because Grandda’s nickname is Bloody Pierre and he’s _terrifying_.) Piotr’s cousin, young Pierre, had been cast as Hotspur to Piotr’s Hal, and they’d played out the battle of Shrewsbury in the great front room of Vorrutyer House. Dono, as The Douglas, had challenged Grandma in what he fondly imagined was a Scottish accent, and Grandma had fallen over and played dead.

_King Lear_ is nowhere near as much fun. There’s one bit where Grandda gets to do some stabbing, and at the very end Pierre and Dono fight each other in a trial by combat, but Piotr doesn’t get to do much in that scene because he’s playing Albany. And the _ending_ is all wrong. Just when you think things are going to turn out well – just when Grandda has died a dramatic death by poison as Regan, and then come out again as Goneril and stabbed himself, and just when Edgar has won his fight against his evil brother and the evil brother has repented and tried to make things right – everything goes to hell. What kind of ending is _that?_

“Who in this play was the most honorable?” Grandda asks after they have read it all the way through. He turns to Pierre first, because Pierre is going to be Count Vorrutyer someday, just like Piotr is going to be Count Vorkosigan, and it is his job to answer first. _That_ suits Piotr just fine. Grandda asks _difficult_ questions.

“Cordelia,” says Pierre, “because she told the truth, no matter how much it cost her.”

“But she died,” says Dono. “I think Edgar and Albany were more honorable, because they stayed alive and got to rule the kingdom at the end.”

“That doesn’t have anything to do with _honor_ ,” says Piotr scornfully. “Edgar lied all the time, and Albany didn’t stand up to his wife until almost the end of the play. I don’t think either of them was honorable at all.”

“I do,” says Dono. “Cordelia didn’t get to do any _good_ by telling the truth. And Shakespeare wouldn’t have made _dishonorable_ people be king at the end, so there.”

Dono wanders back to the elaborate, cantilevered tower he has been building with wooden blocks (which should have fallen over ages ago, but somehow manages to stay up), leaving his brother and cousin to face Grandda’s inquisition. Dono isn’t going to be Count Anybody unless something happens to Pierre, so Grandda mostly lets him alone.

“I haven’t heard from you yet, Piotr. Who do _you_ think was the most honorable?”

“Cornwall’s servant,” says Piotr.

“Now, _that_ is an interesting answer,” says Grandda. “Why?”

“Because he did the right thing when there was no way he could possibly gain anything from doing it,” says Piotr, “and because he wasn’t a nobleman, so nobody _expected_ it of him.”

Grandda fixes him with the sort of penetrating look that always makes Piotr feel like running away. “Do you think it honorable for a servant to stab his master in the back, then?”

Piotr gulps. “Maybe. If it keeps the master from doing something even worse.”

Grandda makes a harrumphing sound and says, “Remind me never to hire you as a servant,” but because he doesn’t ask any follow-up questions, Piotr knows he really thinks it wasn’t a bad answer at all.

“Now,” says Grandma, “what do we learn from this play?”

“Be good to your parents?” Pierre tries.

But that doesn’t work, Piotr thinks, because Cordelia _was_ good to her father, but she ended up just as dead as the others in the end. He’s sure he can do better. “Don’t ever split up your kingdom. And it’s all right to make foreign allies, but you shouldn’t count on them to win any battles for you.”

“Nobody really cares about the fool?” suggests Dono from his corner.

“No,” says Grandma. “What we learn is that if you’ve bred monsters, you _must_ destroy them yourself. Taking pity only makes things worse, in the end.”

“You’re _all_ wrong,” says Grandda. “What we learn from this play is that old age is _shit_. It’s a lot of sitting around waiting to die, and knowing your heirs are waiting for you to die too. Fuck that.” And, because “Fuck that” is Grandda’s usual way of saying good night, nobody is surprised when he stumps off to bed without saying another word.

* * *

“But how are you supposed to _know_ if you’ve bred a monster?” asks Pierre, once the three boys are alone in their bedroom. “I mean, it didn’t say anywhere in the play that Goneril and Regan were muties. They probably looked just like everyone else. And it even says Edmund was good-looking.”

Pierre seems really distressed, for reasons Piotr doesn’t quite understand, so Piotr does his best to make his older cousin laugh. He says, in his best imitation of Grandma’s voice, “Now, what do we learn from this play?”

Pierre snorts and says, “If you’re out in the rain anyway, you might as well go for broke and take all your clothes off.”

“You should call people ‘Thou whoreson zed’ as often as possible,” suggests Piotr in Grandda’s voice. “Also, ‘son and heir of a mongrel bitch’.”

“When everything else fails, pretend to be crazy,” offers Dono, and he demonstrates by wearing his underpants on top of his head and running around in circles yelling “AGGAWAGGAWAGGAWAGGA!” He does this for so long that Piotr begins to worry that he has gone crazy for real, but Pierre shrugs and says Dono is always like that.

He won’t go to bed properly, either, even after the two older boys have blown out the candles. He keeps leaning off the edge of the top bunk with his head behind the curtains, looking out the window. Pierre finally takes the bait and asks him what he’s looking at.

“There are lights in the sky.”

“Those are called _stars_ , Dono,” says Piotr.

“No, these ones are _moving_. Maybe it’s _colonists._ ”

“Don’t be stupid, Dono,” says Pierre. “That was hundreds of years ago. Go to sleep.”


End file.
